The Supreme Court has ruled that the 2nd amendment applies to individual citizens. But how does that affect you? How does it affect the lives of your and your children? Who is packing a pistol? Should you be carrying one too? What you should know before you step out your front door.

If you are anti-guns, or afraid of guns, or just don't like them and don't want them in your house, then this blog is for you.(It might just change your mind)

Sunday, April 1, 2012

District Court Holds Second Amendment Applies Outside the Home, Strikes Down Ban on Gun Transportation During State of Emergency

By Eugene Volokh

Bateman v. Perdue (E.D.N.C. Mar. 29, 2012)
involves a North Carolina law that bans “transport[ing] or possess[ing]
off [one's] own premises any dangerous weapon” when a state of
emergency has been declared. “Due to natural disasters and severe
weather, states of emergency are declared with some frequency in North
Carolina. In 2010, for example, the Governor … issued four statewide
emergency declarations and one declaration covering a fifteen-county
area ….” There were also at least six local states of emergency
declared. All five of these 2010 states of emergency were in response
to weather conditions, and the frequency of such declarations may stem
from the fact that “[a] state of emergency must be declared in order to
qualify for federal disaster assistance.”
The court concluded that:

1. The right to keep and bear arms extends to carrying outside one’s
property, for self-defense and for other reasons. The law interferes
with the exercise of this right.

2. The law also interferes with the exercise of people’s right to
defend themselves in their homes, because it bars people from buying
weapons and them transporting them to their homes.

3. The law must therefore be considered under strict scrutiny,
because it isn’t just limited to high-risk gun possessors, to particular
kinds of guns, or particular manners or times of carrying guns, and
because it interferes with getting guns even for home defense (though,
as I noted, the court also concluded that carrying guns for defense
outside the home is also generally constitutionally protected).

4. The law fails strict scrutiny, because they “excessively intrude
upon plaintiffs’ Second Amendment rights by effectively banning them …
from engaging in conduct that is at thev ery core of the Second
Amendment at a time when the need for self-defense may be at its very
greatest” and therefore aren’t narrowly tailored to serve the
government’s compelling interest in public safety.

Note that, as is often the case, the application of “strict scrutiny”
can be quite rights-protective or not depending on what one understands
“narrow tailoring” to mean. If narrow tailoring requires some
plausible reason to believe that the law will on balance help prevent
crime and injury, then that requirement will very often be satisfied.
If it requires social science proof that the law will on balance help
prevent crime and injury, then that requirement will rarely be
satisfied, especially in situations such as this: There will rarely be
solid studies of the effects of this particular kind of law.

And if, as here, “narrow tailoring” requires that the law not
“excessively intrude” on rights, then that might be something like a
rule of per se invalidation (at least as to very heavy burdens on the
right): The premise of such an approach is that, regardless of whether
the restrictions will reduce crime and injury, it is still
unconstitutional if it interferes with the core of the right, since the
constitutional recognition of the right expresses a judgment that the
right must be protected despite the threat it may pose to compelling
government interests. For more on all this, check out my Implementing the Right to Keep and Bear Arms for Self-Defense: An Analytical Framework and a Research Agenda, 56 UCLA L. Rev. 1443 (2009).

Congratulations to Alan Gura, the lawyer who won Heller and McDonald, on his victory in this case, and to the Second Amendment Foundation, which helped file the case.

True Hoplophobia, or the fear of guns, is a mental illness which, like other true phobias, incapacitates its victims with anxiety, shortness of breath, inability to think clearly and rationally. Obviously, we who are fearful of guns and their destructive power don't have true Hoplophobia. But we are still afraid. Why?

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PRO GUN QUOTES

Gun control:The theory that a woman found dead in an alley, raped and strangled with her panty hose, is somehow morally superior to a woman explaining to police how her attacker got that fatal bullet wound. - L. Neil Smith

Gun control has not worked in D.C. The only people who have guns are criminals. We have the strictest gun laws in the nation and one of the highest murder rates. It's quicker to pull your Smith and Wesson than to dial 911 if you're being robbed. - Lieutenant Lowell Duckett, President Black Police Caucus, Special Assistant to Washington, D.C. Police Chief

They have gun control in Cuba. They have universal health care in Cuba. So why do they want to come here? - Paul Harvey, 1994

Suppose the Second amendment said A well-educated electorate being necessary for self-governance in a free state, the right of the people to keep and read books shall not be infringed. Is there anyone who would suggest that means only registered voters have a right to read? - Robert Levy, Georgetown University Professor

We should not blame a gun itself for any crime or any acts of violence, any more than we can blame a pen for misspelling a word. - Senator Bennett (R-UT), Congressional Record, 5/16/68

When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government. - Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), US Founding Father, drafted the Declaration of Independence, 3rd US President of the United States

PRO GUN CONTROL QUOTES

For target shooting, that's okay. Get a license and go to the range. For defense of the home, that's why we have police departments.- James Brady

The most effective means of fighting crime in the United States is to outlaw the possession of any type of firearm by the civilian populace.- Janet Reno

We need to stand firm on behalf of sensible gun control legislation. We have to enact laws that will keep guns out of the hand of children and criminals and mentally unbalanced persons.- Hillary Clinton

Without stronger, sensible gun laws, thousands upon thousands of people will continue to die and be injured needlessly each year.- Brady Campaign

We don't need any additional gun laws, we need to enforce the ones that we've got!- Anonymous

One third of all households with children younger than eighteen have a firearm-Brady Campaign

If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an out-right ban, picking up every one of them... 'Mr. and Mrs. America, turn 'em all in,' I would have done it. I could not do that. The votes weren't here.-Senator Dianne Feinstein

This year will go down in history. For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration. Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future!- Adolph Hitler